As the candidates arrive at the Savoy Hotel, they are greeted by Lord Sugar who announces this week is the negotiating task, a personal favourite of mine, with a small twist in that the candidates are buying the items for the Savoy Hotel. He quite clearly states that ‘the task is all about the importance of negotiation, and getting the right price’. It’s at this point he’s given them a massive clue, in that yes the negotiation is important, but ultimately sourcing the best deal and the cheapest locations is really what wins and loses these tasks. After all getting 50% off an item when the starting price is £300 more than it should be shows a lot less business acumen than getting 5% off a bargain.
The teams are mixed up this week, and Susan and Gavin are elected the Project Managers. I fear for Susie in the sense that she has seemed a bit timid, young and perhaps naïve thus far, yet in the hotel she actually runs the team with great efficiency, getting the perfect balance between maintaining control without being overbearing. Gavin on the other hand does none of these things. Firstly, he seems a rather shifty character, and as an optician it’s alarming that he seems to have genuine issues with making eye contact. Also, he seems intent on playing up to every scouse stereotype imaginable, and at one point he even jumps up and down, waving his arms, saying ‘calm down, calm down’. All that’s missing is an affro hairdo, tash, and pink shell suit. In fact the writing looked on the wall from him before they’d even arrived, when Vincent turned to him in the car and said ‘we have no option but to win’. That from Vincent is about as encouraging as when you’re setup on a blind date with someone who has a ‘lovely personality’.
Susan’s team efficiently sources eight items and is off, with Jim deciding pretty sharpish he doesn’t want Leon and gives him to Susan to deal with. At least Leon seems to be getting more of a realistic perception of his abilities, actually agreeing with Jim passing him over, congratulating him on a ‘good trade’. For Gavin’s team though, things are going from bad to worse. They’ve found no items, been in a room for 3 hours, and the most insightful strategy has come from Natasha, who rings a rival hotel asking for a procurement list. ‘It’s win win’ she boasts, seeming somewhat oblivious to what that actually means, in that it’s clearly detrimental to a competitor to reveal trade secrets. Unfortunately as the day went on, it would appear Natasha lost her brains somewhere near where she mislaid her underpants in the morning.
Susan’s sterling performance however would turn out to be confined only to the hotel room, for as soon as they embark on finding the items, the sensible strategy of heading east is abandoned, and instead they hit St James street in search of a top hat, eventually getting 1p off a £350 item. Not only does this show a clear lack of common sense in planning, but equally I hate it when anyone gets a penny off, as to me shows a complete lack of effort in negotiating, and gives no evidence for Lord Sugar of their business skills. Jim on the other hand succeeds in a very slick negotiation over fillet steak, and as much as I didn’t like his conduct in the boardroom last week, slagging off other individuals to save himself, he is certainly the front runner so far. Jedi Jim was trending on Twitter, which is probably a bit much, but his Irish accent does seem to give him a certain charm and rapport with people. Yet, if you ask me, he won’t win, as I still think there may be a more sinister side to Jim that came out last week, and also its very rare the favourites early on go on to be victorious (except Stella you could argue last year).
In the other team however things are looking pretty shambolic. Eventually they leave the hotel after 3 hours of finding no items, still convinced a Cloche is in fact a French Cloché that can be found in the local garden centre. Gavin makes a catastrophic mistake in electing Vincent to manage a team of three women, and already you can see a glint in the Belgians eye (assuming that isn’t a bit of pomade that’s dripped down from his hair). Vincent in this task seems to be of the belief that the three women are in fact Vincent’s Angels, and he also immediately, and somewhat offensively, reduces Zoe to the role of his secretary. As they drive off, he surprise me when he doesn’t know what a ‘physalis’ is. I would of thought if he’s anywhere as sleazy in the nightclubs as he is on camera, he would have had a fair few doses of the physalis already…
As the day draws to a close, the teams have both made some big errors, with Vincent getting his geography completely mixed up, and Ellie referring to him as a Billy Bullsh*tter after he refuse to let his female ‘subordinates’ conduct telephone calls (I’m starting to like her more and more). Gavin also succeeds in asking a dry cleaner to buy a top hat as it’s called ‘Top Hat’ dry cleaners. I like his logic, my local dry cleaners actually called Silky Tiger, so I think I might go and get myself a nice Bengal down there once I’ve finished penning this. In fact when they return to the boardroom they are four items shy, and two of those are light bulbs, and ice, which is frankly ridiculous that they couldn’t get such mainstream items in 9 hours.
Yet despite his lack of authority, I was convinced Susan was going to lose, as they over-looked the fundamental point of the task, getting the right price. They overpaid on the top hat, they overpaid on the silk, and don’t even get me started on sourcing a £900 box of tea! Frankly no negotiating I felt would save them from some real lack of common sense, failing to find out what every item should cost, and the places to source them at an affordable price. After all, the issue of quality is really nonsense, as obviously the Hotel isn’t going to use the items in real life.
However as ever I fall for the editing and Gavin does indeed lose. As soon as the result was announced, you knew he was a goner. Yes Vincent was quite slimey and chauvinistic, but ultimately Gavin, as nice a chap as he may be, showed no leadership qualities, was indecisive, easily shaken, and lacked authority. I felt that his bringing Zoe into the boardroom was perhaps a touch harsh. OK so she didn’t negotiate, yet she was effectively side-lined by Vince, and her inactivity still wasn’t as bad as some of the nonsense Natasha came out with during the day. Also as a fellow Nottingham Alumni, I’m secretly hoping Zoe might do well, maybe even going one step further than me and Saira Khan and winning the show.
The boardroom in then end was pretty straight forward, and Lord Sugar made the right call in dismissing Gavin. Gavin was probably right in saying that Vincent couldn’t even run a bath, and Lord Sugars cross-hairs will be firmly placed on Vincent should he fall again. I give him at most 3 weeks before he leaves, wouldn’t surprise me if sooner, as he hasn’t really shown and discernable attributes other than rubbing people up the wrong way (almost literally on a few occasions). For Zoe she probably needs to up her game, as ultimately shyness won’t be considered an excuse for not contributing, however she showed enough in the boardroom for me to believe there’s still hope for her yet. For Gavin on the other hand, he was in truth a bit out of his depth, he seemed scared of the prospect of managing, he didn’t take any control, and lacked the self-assurance required to do well in the process. I’m afraid if Vincent couldn’t run a bath, Gavin would struggle to run a bunga bunga party around Silvio Berlusconi’s house.
